Petronas Twin Towers
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| Petronas Twin Towers | |
Petronas Twin Towers was the world's tallest building from 1998 to 2004.*
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| Preceded by | Sears Tower |
| Surpassed by | Taipei 101 |
| Information | |
|---|---|
| Location | Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia |
| Status | Complete |
| Constructed | 1992-1998 |
| Height | |
| Antenna/Spire | 452.0 m (1,482.9 ft) |
| Roof | 378.6 m (1,242.1 ft) |
| Top floor | 375.0 m (1,230.3 ft) |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 88 |
| Floor area | 395,000 m² (4,252,000 sq ft) |
| Elevator count | 78 |
| Companies | |
| Architect |  César Pelli |
| Contractor |  Samsung Engineering & Construction Hazama Corporation B.L. Harbert International |
| Management | KLCC |
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*Fully habitable, self-supported, from main entrance to highest structural or architectural top; see the list of tallest buildings in the world for other listings. |
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The Petronas Twin Towers (also known as the Petronas Towers or Twin Towers), in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia were the world's tallest buildings, before being surpassed by the Taipei 101. Tower 2 was built by the South Korean multinational Samsung Engineering & Construction and Tower 1 by Hazama Corporation of Japan[1]. They were the world's tallest buildings from 1998 to 2004 if measured from the level of the main entrance to the structural top, the original height reference used by the US-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat from 1969 (three additional height categories were introduced as the tower neared completion in 1996). [2]
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[edit] Comparison with other towers
The Petronas Twin Towers were the tallest buildings in the world until Taipei 101, as measured to the top of their structural components (spires, but not antennas), took over the record. Spires are considered integral parts of the architectural design of buildings, to which changes would substantially change the appearance and design of the building, whereas antennas may be added or removed without such consequences. The Petronas Twin Towers remain the tallest twin buildings in the world.
The Sears Tower and the World Trade Center towers were each constructed with 110 occupied floors – 22 more than the Petronas Twin Towers’ 88 floors. The Sears Tower and the World Trade Center’s roofs and highest occupied floors substantially exceeded the height of the roof and highest floors of the Petronas Twin Towers. The Sears Tower’s tallest antenna is about 250 feet (76 metres) taller than the Petronas Twin Towers’ spires. However, in accordance to CTBUH regulations and guidelines, [3] the antennas of the Sears Tower were not counted as part of its architectural features.[4][5] Therefore, the Petronas Twin Towers exceed the official height of the Sears Tower by 10m, but the Sears Tower has more floors with occupied office space at a higher level.
[edit] History
Designed by Argentine-American architect César Pelli, the Petronas Towers were completed in 1998 and became the tallest buildings in the world on the date of completion. The 88-floor towers are constructed largely of reinforced concrete, with a steel and glass façade designed to resemble motifs found in Islamic art, a reflection of Malaysia's Muslim religion. They were built on the site of Kuala Lumpur's race track. Because of the depth of the bedrock, the buildings were built on the world's deepest foundations. The 120-meter foundations were built by Bachy Soletanche, and required massive amounts of concrete.
In an unusual move, a different construction company was hired for each of the towers. According to both a National Geographic documentary and a Korean newspaper, Tower 2 was successfully completed by Samsung Constructions, Kukdong Engineering & Construction (both of South Korea). However, the builders of Tower 1, Hazama Corporation (Japan), ran into problems when they discovered the structure was 25 millimeters off from vertical[6] [7]. The shopping mall beneath both towers was constructed by Birmingham, Alabama-based Bill Harbert International.
Due to a lack of steel and the huge cost of importing steel, the towers were constructed on a cheaper radical design of super high-strength reinforced concrete. High-strength concrete is a material familiar to Asian contractors and twice as effective as steel in sway reduction; however, it makes the building twice as heavy on its foundation than a comparable steel building. Supported by 23-by-23 meter concrete cores and an outer ring of widely-spaced super columns, the towers use a sophisticated structural system that accommodates its slender profile and provides from 1300 to 2000 square metres of column-free office space per floor.
Below the twin towers is Suria KLCC, a popular shopping mall, and Dewan Filharmonik Petronas, the home of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra.
Petronas, Malaysia's national oil company, set out to build the world's tallest building. Although other buildings such as the Sears Tower have higher occupied floors, a higher antenna, and a higher roof, the Petronas Twin Towers' spires are classified as architectural details and rise to 452 m (1483 feet), giving it the greatest structural height until Taipei 101. Taking advantage of the rules governing building measurements (counting spires but not antennas) has generated controversy over the towers' claim to the title. However, the tradition of including the spire on top of a building and not including the antenna dates back to the rivalry between the Chrysler Building and the 40 Wall Street.
Other buildings have used spires to increase their height but have always been taller overall to the pinnacle when trying to claim the title. In the aftermath of the controversy, the rules governing official titles were partially overhauled, and a number of buildings re-classified structural antenna as architectural details to boost their height rating (even though nothing was actually done to the building).
[edit] Tenants of the Petronas Twin Towers
Tower One is fully occupied by the Petronas Company and a number of its subsidiaries and associate companies. The office spaces in Tower Two are mostly available for lease to other companies. A number of companies have offices in Tower Two, including Accenture, Al Jazeera English, Carigali Hess Bloomberg, Boeing, IBM, Khazanah Nasional Berhad, McKinsey & Co, TCS, Krawler Networks, Microsoft,, Newfield Exploration and Reuters.
[edit] KLCC Park
the building is a park with jogging and walking paths, a fountain with incorporated light show, wading pools, and a children's playground.
Suria KLCC is one of the biggest shopping malls in Malaysia.
[edit] Skybridge
The towers feature a skybridge (constructed by Kukdong Engineering & Construction) between the two towers on 41st and 42nd floors, which is the highest 2-story bridge in the world. The bridge is 170m above the ground and 58 m long, weighing 750 tons. The same floor is also known as the podium, since visitors desiring to go to higher levels have to change elevators here. The skybridge is open to all visitors, but free passes (limited to 1700 people per day) must be obtained on a first-come, first-served basis. The Skyway is closed on Mondays. Visitors are allowed to go only on the 41st floor as the 42nd floor is used only by the tenants of the building.
The skybridge also acts as a safety device, so that in the event of a fire or other emergency in one tower, tenants can evacuate by crossing the skyway to the other tower. However, the total evacuation triggered by a bomb hoax on September 12, 2001 (the day after the September 11 attacks destroyed the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City) showed that the bridge would not be useful if both towers need to be emptied simultaneously, and the capacity of the staircases was insufficient for such an event. Plans thus call for the elevators to be used if both towers need to be evacuated, and a successful drill following the revised plan was conducted in 2005.
[edit] Elevator system
The main bank of Otis elevators is located in the center of each tower. All main elevators are double-decker with the lower deck of the elevator taking passengers to odd numbered floors and upper deck to even numbered floors. In order to access an even numbered floor from ground level, passengers are required to use an escalator to access the upper deck of the elevator.
From the ground floor there are three groupings of elevator. The "short haul" group of 6 elevators take passengers to floors between level 2/3 and level 16/17. The "mid haul" group of 6 elevators take passengers to floors between level 18/19 and level 37/38. There is also a set of shuttle elevators that take passengers directly to levels 41/42. In order to get to levels above 41/42, passengers are required to take the shuttle elevators and then change elevators to the upper floors. These connecting elevators are placed directly above the elevators serving levels 2 to 38. The pattern now repeats with the upper levels, one set serving levels 43/44 to 57/58 and one set serving levels 59/60 to levels 73/74.
Apart from this main bank of elevators, there are a series of "connecting" elevators to take people between the elevator groupings. Unlike the main elevators, these are not of the double-decker type. Two elevators are provided to take people from levels 37/38 to levels 41/42 (levels 39 and 40 are not accessible as office space). This avoids the need for someone situated at the lower half of the building to go down to the ground floor in order to gain access to the upper half of the building.
The elevators contain a number of safety features. It is possible to evacuate people from an elevator stuck between floors by manually driving one of the adjacent elevators next to it and opening a panel in the wall. It is then possible for people in the stuck elevator to walk between elevator cars.
During an evacuation of the buildings the shuttle elevator is allowed to be used. This is because there are only doors at levels G/1 and levels 41/42 therefore should there be a fire in the lower half of the building, this enclosed shaft would remain unaffected.
[edit] Service building
The service building is to the east of the Petronas Towers and contains the services required to keep the building operational, such as dissipating the heat from the air-conditioning system for all 88 levels in both towers.
[edit] Notable events
On March 20th, 1997, French urban climber, Alain "Spiderman" Robert, using only his bare hands and feet and with no safety devices, scaled the building's exterior glass and steel wall. Police arrested him at the 60th floor, 28 floors away from the "summit". He made a second attempt on March 20th 2007, exactly 10 years later, and was stopped once again on the same floor (though on the other tower).[8]
On the evening of Friday, November 4, 2005, a fire broke out in a movie theater complex in the Suria KLCC shopping centre below the Petronas Twin Towers, triggering panic among patrons who fled screaming and coughing in the thick, acrid smoke. There were no reports of injuries. The buildings were largely empty (except the shopping mall, Suria KLCC) because of the late hour; the only people affected were moviegoers and some diners in restaurants.[9]
[edit] Popular culture
The Petronas Towers were a setting for some scenes in the 1999 film Entrapment staring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones. It ends in a dramatic pursuit of the two stars by SWAT teams, eventually leading to Connery's capture and Catherine's escape. The towers also feature in three levels of the game Hitman 2: Silent Assassin. The player travels from one tower to another using the sky bridge, though it is unlike the real sky bridge; instead of being a narrow passageway, the sky bridge is wide and entered by breaking a panel of glass. Episode 22 from the anime series Cowboy Bebop shows what closely resembles the Petronas Twin Towers being blown up by a terrorist. This episode was taken off the air for a short time post-9/11.
[edit] Gallery
 From front-central-base entrance |
 Suria KLCC shopping complex at the base of the towers |
 Part of the Suria KLCC shopping complex |
 Front facade of the towers |
 Towers from the water fountain in KLCC Park |
 Front facade of the towers |
 The towers |
 The towers |
 Looking up from concourse level in Suria KLCC's atrium space |
 From the flyover bridge |
 View from the public park |
 Galactica Night at KLCC Petronas Twin Towers |
 From the open public children park/playground |
 Kuala Lumpur from Genting Highland Resort |
 The water fountain at the rear entrance of Suria KLCC, and Kuala Lumpur |
 The 41st floor skybridge |
 Towers at night |
 Close up view of the skybridge |
 The twin towers in the rain |
 Petronas Towers at Night |
 Looking up from the base of one of the Towers |
[edit] Quotations
A quote by the building's main architect:
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- "According to Lao Tse, the reality of a hollow object is in the void and not in the walls that define it. He was speaking, of course, of spiritual realities. These are the realities also of the Petronas Towers. The power of the void is increased and made more explicit by the pedestrian bridge that ... with its supporting structure creates a portal to the sky ... a door to the infinite."
- —Cesar Pelli, architect (1995)
- "According to Lao Tse, the reality of a hollow object is in the void and not in the walls that define it. He was speaking, of course, of spiritual realities. These are the realities also of the Petronas Towers. The power of the void is increased and made more explicit by the pedestrian bridge that ... with its supporting structure creates a portal to the sky ... a door to the infinite."
[edit] See also
- List of tallest buildings and structures in the world
- List of tallest freestanding structures in the world
[edit] References
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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2006) |
- ^ Official website of Hazama Corporation"Hazama Corporation is in charge of constructing Tower 1"
- ^ Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat preamble to High Rise Database: "OTHER MEASUREMENTS OF HEIGHT:"
- ^ http://www.ctbuh.org/Resources/Resources-HighRiseDatabase.aspx
- ^ [Sears Tower]
- ^ http://www.ctbuh.org/Resources/Resources-HighRiseDatabase.aspx
- ^ Secret of Petronas Twin Towers, Metroseoul(Korean) Hazama Corporation (Japan) has worked on 'Tower 1' and they found serious problem. The building was leaning 25mm on the ground. While Japanese fix this problem, Samsung Constructions (South Korea) is fully completed building without problem. Moreover, Japanese has failed to complete a spire until the end of scheduled time. While Japan construction team has a deep sleep, the South Korean construction team succeeded in establishing a spire.
- ^ Petronas Twin Towers, National Geographic Channel Broadcast. (Video : 36:02~36:13) "25mm problem....Tower 1 wasn't straight."
- ^ 'Spiderman’ has another go at Twin Towers, The Star, March 21, 2007.
- ^ Fire Forces Evacuation at Malaysia Towers, CBS News, November 4, 2005.
[edit] External links
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Dictionary definitions |
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Quotations |
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Source texts |
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Images and media |
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News stories |
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Learning resources |
- The Official Website
- Petronas Towers in the Structurae database
- SkyScrapers.org - Illustration Entry of Petronas Towers
- panoramas.dk 360-Panorama Petronas Tower
- ArchNet - Drawings, photos and videos
- Satellite Image at Google Maps
- Petronas Twin Towers: Analysis of the Form
- KLCC Malaysia
- Photos, Pictures and other supplementary information on Petronas Twin Towers and Suria KLCC - Kuala Lumpur City Centre by Photography in Malaysia, Malaysian Internet Resources ("MIR")
- Design and construction of the Petronas Towers
- Digital visualization of Petronas Towers
| Preceded by Sears Tower |
World's tallest building architectural element 452.0m (1,482.9ft) 1998-2003 |
Succeeded by Taipei 101 |
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